


For Me and My Guy

by Morvith



Series: For me and my guy [1]
Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011), The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types
Genre: Also an awesome dancing partner, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - World War I, Angst, Cottia is their friend, Established Relationship, For Me and My Gal AU, Idiots in Love, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Reunions, Romance, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 08:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morvith/pseuds/Morvith
Summary: World War I/For me and my gal AU. It's January 1919, our brave boys are coming home. Cottia and Esca, formerly two thirds of The Three Macs, are part of a show for the troops at the famed Palace Theater. It ought to be a moment of great celebration, but how can Esca be happy when Marcus, their partner and his lover, is still missing?
Relationships: Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval
Series: For me and my guy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668247
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	For Me and My Guy

_Paris (the French one), July 10th, 1918 _

_My dearest, _

_If I ever complain about how many rehearsals you schedule, feel free to kick me, as long as you'll kiss me afterwards and never stop. I miss you, I miss your kisses and your smile and your voice. I miss holding you in my arms as we dance. My only consolation is knowing you are safe. _

_This is not how I dreamed to tour Europe. For one thing, we'd all be together. For another, well... It's nothing like I imagined. I keep telling myself I shall take you (and our friend, of course I haven't forgotten the third Mac) after the war is over, but sometimes it feels like that day will never come._

_Even if it does, I don't know if I will ever want to return here, even with you by my side. How strange would it be, to see farms and fields where now there's nothing but mud and death. _

_Yesterday I finally found a piano for Fred: I had him play one of our songs and he's great! We have got to steal him somehow. Don't go and get jealous now: he can't dance worth a damn and you're the only one I want to dance with (alright, you and our third Mac, please pass it on because I like my toes untrodden)._

_I have to cut it short now, we are to report back in an hour. Please keep writing me, I treasure each and every one of your letters, no matter how long it takes me to get them._

_With all my love, _

_Marcus_

Esca stands outside The Palace Theater stage door – a dream come true, but two years too late, and it tastes like ashes in his mouth.

Marcus ought to be here with him and Cottia, not a letter that's six months out of date. The last letter they ever got from him before he vanished.

Missing In Action, that's his official status. Cottia won't say it, but she thinks he is dead.

Esca can't believe it, he won't believe it until he sees his name on the lists. So far the only Aquila that showed up was Marcus' father, may the old bastard rot in Hell.

Some days Esca is tempted to write to every single Frederick and Alfred in the U.S. Army to ask them whether they knew one Marcus Aquila, former song-and-dance man and one third of The Three Macs.

Did he ever write Marcus they don't use the name anymore? They're Iceni & Mac now – not The Two Macs, never The Two Macs. Old Guern, their agent, might have grumbled at that, but deep down he understood.

Some days Esca doesn't know whether knowing for sure that Cottia is right would be better or worse than this constant uncertainty.

There are so many dark-eyed, brown-haired men in the world, his heart can't keep jumping like this whenever he sees one...

The stage door opens and Cottia pokes her head out. “Esca, we're on next.” Her eyes slide down to the letter in his hands and she lays a hand on his shoulder. “Careful with that. It looks like rain.”

“In a minute.”

“Okay.” She hesitates for a moment, but she they've been friends for too long: she knows when he needs company and when he just wants to be left alone. The stage door closes softly.

Esca closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, his heart heavy with Marcus' absence. He thinks back on the blazing row they had the day he enlisted, all the ways they made love before he had to leave – angry and rough, then slow, careful, desperate and frantic and Marcus' stupid tall frame and his shoulders and his smile...

Thinking of Marcus' last days with them always brings forth the memory of his other losses – his brothers Ethan and Edmund, one lost to the fields of France and the other to the cold waters of the Atlantic, Pa dead of a fever, Ma who is still alive but will never be the same... The war has taken so much from him, sometimes he feels he has nothing left to give, but it's always Marcus who aches like a missing limb.

Slowly, carefully, Esca folds the letter and slips it back in his inner pocket with Marcus' picture, the one he sent after training, and goes back inside, taking his place next to Cottia with time to spare.

They march on the stage to the sound of drums and polite applause. Every seat is occupied by men in uniform – he ought to be used to it by now, it's not their first show for the troops, but it's always unsettling.

Cottia starts to sing, her voice clear and cheerful.

“_When Johnny comes marching home again, hurray, hurray_

_We'll give him a hearty welcome then, hurray, hurray,_

_All the men will cheer, the boys will shout and we'll all feel gay when_

_Johnny comes marching home!_”

“_Strike up the band!_” Esca joins in in perfect harmony. “_Let the bells ring out!_

_Strike up the band, let the people shout,_”

Spin, then part and face the audience, gesture wide and then start pointing at some of them in turn, trying not to get to lost in that sea of faces. So many brown-haired men in army green... Especially the tall one in row ten, he looks just like...

“_And every mothers son of you,_

_that means you, and you, and you, and..._”

Esca's eyes land back on him and he falters, trails off as Cottia keeps singing. That man... he knows those eyes, that face, that man is... it's really...

“MARCUS!”

Esca doesn't remember running across the stage and down the stairs, racing up the aisle with Cottia right behind him. He's not seeing things, he hasn't gone crazy, it's him, he's here, Marcus is here...

Marcus stumbles, almost falls under his weight – he's too thin and gaunt but indubitably, indisputably solid in his arms. Cottia slams against them a second later, screaming and crying, the band is still playing, all around men are clapping and cheering and slapping his back and shoulders and if Esca steals a kiss or two in the confusion, for once he's sure no one will mind.

“Where the Hell have you been, you asshole?!”

Marcus looks down and away, at the crutch and his legs and... there's only one. Marcus has only one leg and he's not looking at him.

“I'm sorry. I should have... I didn't know how tell you.” He says, sounding utterly defeated.

“You fucking idiot,” Esca growls as he hugs him again, more carefully this time. “You're alive, that's the only thing that matters. Everything else, we'll figure it out.”

Cottia nods through her tears and gently punches Marcus' shoulder.

Some of the tension melts away from Marcus' body and he finally, finally looks up. He's smiling.

Esca really wishes they weren't in public because he missed that smile and he'd love to show Marcus just how much.

But business is business, the show must go on and even if Marcus tries to demure, he and Cottia will have none of it: between them, they get him up on the stage as somebody starts playing their old hit “_For Me and My Gal_” on the piano – one of the boys in green apparently pushed the pianist over and Esca really hopes that's the fabled Fred because damn, he is good.

“Are you crazy? I can't dance!” Marcus protests.

“So sing!” Esca shouts back, slipping Marcus's arm over his shoulders as Cottia wraps her harms around his waist on the other side. It looks like they are all hugging, not like they are holding him up.

Together, they stand under the lights, just where they ought to be – The Three Macs, back in business.

“_The bells are ringing for me and my gal,_

_The birds are singing for me and my gal,_

_Everybody's been knowing, to a wedding they're going..._”

Marcus might not understand now, but Esca will explain later why he they had to do this, why it's so important.

This stupid fucking war has chewed up and spit back out too many young men, broke them in ways and places nobody knew they could be broken. But they ain't finished yet, not all of them.

“_They're congregatin' for me and my gal_

_The parson's waiting for me and my gal_

_and sometime we're gonna build a little home _

_for two or three or four or maybe more_”

They are alive. His Marcus is alive, he's home. That's the only thing that matters. Whatever else happens, they'll deal with it. Together.

“_In Loveland for me and my gal!_”

So what if Esca sings “guy” on the last line? Risk be damned, for once in his life he'll sing it the way he damn well wants to: between the choir and the crowd singing along, nobody can hear him.

Nobody but Marcus.

**Author's Note:**

> \- I have no idea how "Me & My Gal" would work for a trio. Just go with it. 
> 
> \- Marcus should have probably been knocked down when Esca ran to him, but I claim artistic license. 
> 
> \- Why The Three Macs and not The Three Aquilas? Aquila was deemed "too foreign", even before the war. 
> 
> \- Why does Esca hate Aquila Sr. so much? So, backstory time. Aquila Sr. was a career officer. His wife died when Marcus was very young and his father shipped him off to his sister and brother-in-law, who weren't exactly thrilled to have him but took him in out of duty. Marcus ran away from home as a teenager, did odd jobs to survive and learned to dance. Cottia and Esca, both vaudeville kids, got him on the stage. Eventually The Three Macs were seen by somebody who knew Marcus' aunt and Marcus got a scathing letter from his father re: his life choices. Marcus had to sit on Cottia and distract Esca with lots of sex to keep them from sending a reply.  
After the United States joined the war, Marcus got another letter from his father, telling him he hoped he would do his duty and redeem his shameful life. Aquila Sr. was actually very lucky to die in France before either Cottia or Esca could get their hands on him. 
> 
> \- Marcus didn't enlist, he was drafted. He did consider deliberately injuring his hand, like Harry in "For Me and My Gal", but then he thought of Esca's brothers and decided to lie out of shame. In his head it made sense at the time. 
> 
> \- Esca was considered "temporary exempted, but available for military service" because he was his widowed mother's sole support. 
> 
> \- Where the Heck was Marcus in those six months? He sent another letter that never reached Esca before he was badly wounded at the battle of Soissons. He didn't show up on the wounded lists because he lost all means of identification and spent a couple of months in a coma or delirious with fever. By the time he was coherent enough to ID himself, the army paperwork got lost in the shuffle, so the news didn't make it back home. Marcus never wrote to Esca because waking up without a leg did a bad number on him.
> 
> If you have more questions, feel free to ask. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
